<p>Patric,</p>
<p>I feel your pain. Because money is tight, I tend to do more than a little bit of snooping around from one forum or online review to another. Most times, I find some really useful information. Other times, I end up with analysis paralysis from too much information. </p>
<p>Due to the ever-changing, ever-evolving nature of technology and the flood of products and services on the market, I’d say spend as little money as you can, but enough to get the job done at a level that makes the “end user” happy – whether that’s a paying client, or yourself. If you’ve done your research and narrowed it down to a couple of different options, check rental prices and rent for a day or weekend. That way you can test them side-by-side and draw your own conclusions. That should give you a great level of confidence about your final decision. </p>
<p>If renting is not in the budget, see if you know someone with the desired setup who’ll need an assistant on a job, or who may even be willing to do a “walkabout” with you to do some random shooting. Maybe you have some gear they’d like to try out or experience/knowledge they could benefit from while you’re at it. I’m in the New York metro area and am somewhat new to the video side of things. If you’re in this area and want to check out a D7100, I have one that I like a lot. Then again, it’s easy to like it over what I’d been using for my still photography (D200s)! But that goes back to what I was saying about only spending what you need to get the job done. For the vast majority of my wedding and portrait type work, my D200s do the job. The desire to get into video and the need for better low light capability made me buy the D7100. Now I want to add two more D7100 bodies to my kit. I considered the D800, but for where I am now, two D7100s is a more practical choice than getting one D800 for similar money.</p>
<p>Like Craig, I’ve read that going with dedicated pro video cameras would save you a lot of the little headaches of outfitting a DSLR to do proper video work, and that seems logical to me. BUT, if you’re like me and you do still photo work as well, the budget may not allow you have dedicated gear for stills and a separate set of cameras and accessories for video work. Somebody’s getting rich in this industry, but it ain’t your average shooter! </p>
<p>I really can’t give you an opinion on the D5000 series because I haven’t used them, but the impression I got when I was shopping around for a video DSLR was that they weren’t close enough to the professional models to make me feel comfortable. Don’t get me wrong. Most consumer level cams produce great quality imagery. Where the cameras (consumer – prosumer – professional) start to separate themselves is in build quality and ruggedness. It really depends on what you need and how you’ll use the gear. When I shoot weddings, things can get crazy and gear gets knocked around (and dare I say DROPPED). The D7100, while not top-of-the-line pro level, is somewhere in the middle and affordable – especially since I need multiple sets of gear in case something goes wrong on a shoot.</p>
<p>Sorry to be so long-winded, but to sum it up…</p>
<ul>
<li>Try before you buy if possible. That’ll answer a lot of questions for you.</li>
<li>Whatever you buy, make sure it gets the job done NOW. You never know what upgrades you’ll be able to afford or when.</li>
<li>The further you go down a particular path (camera, lenses and accessories), the more invested you are. In other words, how much DSLR gear do you have now versus how much dedicated video gear you’d need to get the job done.</li>
</ul>
<p>I hope some of this rambling has helped you. Let me know if you’re in my area. Maybe we could do a meetup.</p>
